


abba is basically 2am therapy right?

by livtontea



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: COPING i am so good at it, Gen, another anxiety attack!! oh joy, brief mentions of nsfw?? idk theres. nothing at all here, dont take tips from me, me liveblogging my night but in fic form, no beta no proofreading no capitalization, tag wranglers i sincerely apologize for this mess, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26248138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: the track switches. to an ad. if alec weren't broke he would buy a plan but he's cheap and broke and has been riding the app's free plan and pc version for what feels like forever. his breathing doesn't pick up but the pain in his chest increases. he's heard this ad at least eight times a day for the past week. he's tired. he almost misses the condoms ads, because those at least he couldlaughat.
Kudos: 1





	abba is basically 2am therapy right?

**Author's Note:**

> exactly what is says on the tin baby!!! i miss the trojan man ads and my earbuds are broken!! i wrote this straight into the ao3 textbox and im never doing that again. the moon is full i think. um. i don't know if you got this far im assuming you're about to read this so i'll let you get to that, ok love u bye

"okay," says alec, fumbling with his computer passcode with shaking fingers. "okay, okay, okay, okay."

he fumbles hard enough his laptop falls off his legs and down to the floor. it snaps shut and the room is suddenly dark without the sickly blue-emitting light.

"shit," says alec, fumbling to pick up his computer and praying it isn't damaged, because _god,_ someone is going to kill him if it's broken, and he isn't sure who, but with how expensive repairs are gonna be it just might end up being alec himself. "shit, shit, shit, shit."

he opens the laptop. "oh thank god," he sighs, and tries to fumble his passcode again. it's then that he realizes that his keyboard isn't set on english, and when he switches it he remembers that he'd had to swap passwords, and has been typing in the wrong one. he wants to cry in relief when windows flashes blue and smiles and winks and lets him at his goddamn stuff. his earbuds are already plugged in and he shoves them unceremoniously, managing to open his music app with unsteady fingers and god why won't his chest stop _hurting_ he really just wants to sleep, truly and honestly, just sink into dreamland or sweet oblivion or whatever the hell people call it when they're on the verge of an anxiety attack and are entitled to a bit of dramatics.

"thank god," he says when he feels the familiar rhythm of _fernando_ sound in his ears. he levels the little icon on the singer's profile with a serious gaze. "abba, you are a godsend."

really. seriously. without abba, alec doesn't even know what the hell he would be doing right now. rhetorically. he would probably be doing exactly this but listening to some other swedish band, like, whatever, he doesn't know any more, and it doesn't matter anyway because his chest is swelling up with pain and he is not hugely successful drowning out his crisis with abba.

it's not that much of a crisis, more of a routine anxiety attack, complete with hunching over his laptop at two in the morning just to try to gain back some semblance of being able to take air into his lungs like a functioning human person. alec takes a deep breath and his chest _hurts_ , why does it always hurt so much, his stomach hurts and his throat is so dry it clicks when he swallows, and he can't get up to get the water he left out for this exact reason, no, because he's curled up like a goddamn pretzel on the bed while the water is _on the table_ and he can't _move._

his night is going swimmingly.

the track switches. to an ad. if alec weren't broke he would buy a plan but he's cheap and broke and has been riding the app's free plan and pc version for what feels like forever. his breathing doesn't pick up but the pain in his chest increases. he's heard this ad at least eight times a day for the past week. he's tired. he almost misses the condoms ads, because those at least he could _laugh_ at.

he clicks rewind and listens to the too-quiet introduction of _fernando_ a second time.

his stomach curls up in a knot because of course it does, because not only is he near frustrated tears past midnight, he's also hungry, and tired, and just wants to stop freaking out and sleep, but this time it's bad, and lately the bad nights have been happening every three nights or so, which means every three nights or so he rides out the bad until four, sometimes five, in the morning, and then goes to sleep and prays he can get in three hours of sleep before he has to get up at eight.

abba is suddenly not anywhere near loud enough. alec skips the song.

 _take a chance on me._ better. maybe he should just listen to the mamma mia soundtrack. it has a lot of the, in izzy's words, _bangers_ on the soundtrack, and alec tried to watch the movie once but only made it halfway through before he got distracted and never got back to it, but he thinks he can gather together something that resembles the plot in his head based off what he's heard about it, and it's _abba_ it shouldn't take--there shouldn't be any critical thinking skills involved or anything. alec turns up the volume. twice. it's only at 8 out of a possible 100 but it feels so much louder already.

"maybe abba is just the kind of shit you blast your eardrums out with," he tells himself.

"you don't want to hurt me, baby don't worry," says abba in his ear. "it's magic."

or something like that. _if you change your mind,_ something something, _take a chance on me._

alec desperately wishes for someone to drop their full body weight on him. right now. right this second. just walk up and fall on top of him and tuck their chin under his head. _god_ , it doesn't even have to be a guy, he has plenty of girl friends, friends who are girls, who he would love to squeeze close to him right now. who is he kidding, says a voice in his head. he has two girl friends, three at most, if you count clary, and he supposes he does, reluctantly, what can he say, she's grown on him--and then lydia and izzy, because he's lucky enough to be one of those people whose siblings are also his best friends.

every time he tilts his head his music cuts out in his left earbud. alec stands up and sets his overheating laptop onto the desk and opens the blinds just enough for the moon to show through if he tilts his head down. he takes a long gratifying sip of water and feels like it would be a waste to turn off the music _now,_ so he pushes his still open laptop out of the way and leans down on his elbows, periodically taking sips of his water so big he feels like he might choke.

the panic and feeling of death creeping up on him passes, slowly, too slowly, it's three in the morning when he looks away from the moon, but it passes. abba keeps playing. alec falls asleep at his computer and wakes up to the first notes of dancing queen.

**Author's Note:**

> im a cheat and a liar im so sorry i wasn't listening to abba while writing this, it was actually my [playlist of all the s1 songs](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lEQUhnVQ2LllVJ76ptcdL?si=hfX5qpI8SSWK7ENHmkFm1g), i listened to fernando once but it wasnt loud enough 😔
> 
> in my words, im allowed to be suitably dramatic. we're on my turf rn, cowboys. yeehaw
> 
> i checked the wordcount and i cant believe this is actually 1k omg what. i need to fucking sleep but im gonna go start another wip, cheers kudos etc all that shit, goodnight folks i hope u have a good one


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